Radiant
by harinezumiko
Summary: Deep in the tunnels of the Tombkeepers, a young Marik Ishtar meets a spirit who will change the course of his life.


Marik knew little of the light, and what little he did know, he feared. It was in the flickering torchlight that strange shapes formed and followed him around the stone walls of his home. It was the light that heralded his father's approach, and it was the light that he saw in paintings of the face of god, and he wondered how the surface-dwellers could stand beneath that fierce gaze.

Marik liked to pass beyond the torchlight, into the unguarded corners of the tomb, to lie in the care of the velvet darkness. Beneath the ground the dark was absolute, the quiet enveloping. The sound of his breath itself slipped away into the deep of permanent nighttime. He slept, sometimes, although the ground was cold and hard and he would catch grief for shirking his cleaning duties.

It was such a time when he first met the spirit. In dreams Marik became aware of its presence, a knife-edge of terror slicing through the jumbled visions. Marik drifted awake, eyes squeezed tightly shut against the pinprick of tears, dread gripping his shivering shoulders.

He listened.

Nothing but his own pounding heart.

He opened his eyes.

Nothing but blackness.

He pushed himself to a sitting position.

His hand brushed against something – no, more like the absence of something. The cold that remains after removing your hand from running water. The feeling of going to pick up your keys and finding them missing. The scent of your first love, long gone.

Marik jerked his hand away and scrambled backwards, reaching for his knife.

"Oh, you won't need that," something whispered in his ear, the wind through rushes.

"If it's all the same to you," said Marik, trying to stem the quavering in his voice, "I want it."

"Suit yourself." Disinterested rather than disappointed, the voice drifted away.

Marik tried to follow the shifting air currents, his eyes and ears straining in the void. He thought he could make out a vaguely circular blur. If he looked directly at it, he saw nothing. But if he let his gaze slide away, it was there, on the periphery of his vision, the faintest of yellowish light like a burnt-out afterimage. It was difficult to establish scale but with Marik's knowledge of the dimensions of the chamber, the glow could be anywhere up to the size of a dinner plate.

He felt his way back to the central tomb. From there it would be simple to find the path sloping upwards and out, and follow it back to his room. Still, he paused, while his heart raced.

"Are… are you the Pharaoh?" Marik asked.

Laughter burbled softly in the deep, building to a breathless guffaw that pursued Marik swiftly as he ran away up the passage.

* * *

Marik didn't speak of the encounter. He wasn't sure how to explain what had happened, and he had a feeling that his father would not be best pleased. But he couldn't let go of the memory, and as time passed, the guilt of keeping a secret began to weigh heavily upon him. Surely today's duty was a punishment from the gods – Rishid was too sick to be of any use, and so Marik had been given the task of cleaning up after a recent looting attempt.

They'd made it to the third room this time, poor souls. Avoiding the switch that activated the spiked walls, and carefully walking with his left foot first, Marik made his way across the narrow path to the body hanging limply over the edge. Marik held his breath and gave it a nudge with his broom. It took a harder push to get it to move, and he almost overbalanced in the process. He held himself back and watched the corpse flail lifelessly into the chasm, to be eaten by the shadows.

Marik locked eyes with the statue blocking his path through the maze. It remained motionless. He picked up his torch and shuffled forward, one step as a time, just as he had been taught. The statues seemed to shift in the flickering torchlight, their weapons juddering to life, but it was just a trick of the eye. He breathed a silent thanks on reaching the other side.

The path in the fourth room was wider, and straight, but no less dangerous. Marik couldn't see any obvious traces of interlopers here but he had been ordered to check all the rooms. This, despite the fact that the Puzzle had long since gone.

Marik sighed and set one foot on the stone bridge. Just like every other time. A further step. Nothing to it, really. A third.

…was that movement he saw out of the corner of his eye? Marik flung the torch around to illuminate the wall. Nothing. He exhaled and took another step.

Something hit him in the small of the back, causing him to stumble. He looked around wildly. Tenebrous tendrils lapped at his feet, before encircling his ankles and tugging him off balance. Marik shrieked and dropped the torch. It rolled away, teetering on the edge of the bridge.

"I'm not afraid! I'm not a coward!"

"Not normally, perhaps," came an amused whisper on the warm underground wind. "But the Ka sense something different in you today."

Marik clawed at the bridge, trying to pull himself up, but the shadows were stronger.

"Need a little help there?" The voice came closer, solidifying as it did so.

Marik looked up to see the transparent shape of a boy, seemingly older than him – almost, but not yet, a man. He was dressed lightly, with unusual white hair set against sun-burnished skin, and a deep scar over one eye. His smug grin steeled Marik's resolve.

"I'll manage," said Marik. The shadows loosened their grip just a little, and he managed to pull himself up enough to lie across the bridge.

"I'm impressed," said the spirit as it crouched down next to Marik. "I thought someone who worked for the Pharaoh would want everything handed to them."

"Tombkeepers don't rely on others," said Marik. He managed to get one leg up on the bridge and paused to breathe before a final effort.

"Yes, well," the spirit continued, settling with his legs nonchalantly splayed. "There's no-one left up there who would help."

Marik rescued his other leg from the now weakened shadows and watched them furl back into the darkness as he moved to a comfortable sitting position. "You're from outside?"

"Once," said the spirit. His lip curled. "And then I got stuck down here, thanks to your Pharaoh."

Marik was about to ask whether the spirit had perhaps helped to build the tomb when a flash of light beneath his red coat caught his attention. The Ring. Something twisted in his stomach.

"How did you get hold of that?"

The spirit's grimace gave way to a smirk as he located the source of Marik's panicked interest. "It's a funny story. Hilarious. Maybe I'll tell you one day. How'd you get those scars?"

Marik scrambled to his feet, ready to run to – the fifth room? His father? He froze.

"Mind the shadows," said the spirit with a laugh. "They're hungry."

* * *

The morning sun blazing in through the air shaft struck Marik directly in the face. He instinctively rolled away from its judgemental gaze.

"You know," said the spirit from the corner, the unexpected sound jerking Marik upright in his bed. "They still have sun-worshippers up there. But they just lie down and bake in it. There's no drama anymore."

Marik heaved a breath. He'd become used to the spirit – always when he was alone, it never came when Rishid or Ishizu or his father were around – but he would never get over the initial shock of his appearance. "What do you want?"

"Now that's a very interesting question." The spirit bared his teeth in a sly smile. "Maybe I want to know what you're doing down here."

Marik looked at the spirit like he was speaking another language. "I'm a Tombkeeper."

"What's left to keep? I've had plenty of time to look around, and this place is not what it once was."

Marik put a hand on his shoulder. His back still hurt, sometimes. "We have to prepare for the Pharaoh's return."

"And that will make it all worth it, will it?"

Marik scrunched his hands into his sheets and said nothing.

The spirit leaned forward, idly dragging his semi-transparent fingers along the stone floor. "They don't let you out much, kid?"

"It's forbidden."

"Doesn't that make it all the more intriguing?" The spirit's eyes glittered in the light from the oil lamp.

"I wouldn't want to, anyway."

The spirit perked up, listening cat-like, though Marik heard nothing. "Ask your sister what it's like." His voice faded with his image.

Marik's heart beat loudly in his ears, matching the beat of his approaching father's footsteps.

* * *

"I'm going, sis!" Marik said, petulantly. His voice echoed off the walls of his room.

"Shhh! Marik, you're too loud." Ishizu cast a glance back at the door.

"It's fine. Our father is asleep." Marik slipped out of bed, keeping his brother and sister's attention away from the pillow under which was secreted the Ring. "We've been planning for this day."

The spirit of the Ring hissed to him. "It has to be today."

"It'll be okay!" Marik spoke to Ishizu, reassuring the spirit in turn. "If anything happens, Rishid will cover for us, right?"

Rishid nodded sadly.

"Sis, I want to see the outside world." Marik's heart pounded at the enormity of his decision. "No matter what."

It was decided the moment Marik placed his hand on Ishizu's. They were going.

They climbed the steps at sunrise. Ishizu first, Marik following, taking care on the worn stone. When Ishizu pushed open the wooden slats covering the entrance to the tomb a sharp light flooded in, brighter than anything Marik was used to. He cowered from it, unsure.

The spirit of the Ring whispered to him, concealed in the fold of his robe. "The gods are dead. A man may take their place in the heavens, if he is shrewd."

Marik removed his hand from his eyes. The sun was incandescent, yes, impossible to look upon; but it was also calm, shimmering, warming. He opened his arms to soak in the feeling. It seemed to settle in his bones, soft and comforting.

The market was only a short walk away and Marik soon heard the clamour of the streets, their many voices. Delicious-smelling food lined one stall, bright copper pots another. Marik saw colours everywhere – the vivid blue of the sky, the intense orange of fruit, the rich green of a lady's shoes. A magazine on the ground caught his attention.

"That's horrible. You shouldn't step on a book." Marik heard the spirit chuckle at his innocent remark, but it offered no other reply. He flicked through the pages, marvelling at the realistic images. He could draw a little himself, but nothing like this.

The next page showed a figure astride a low vehicle. Gleaming metal and red paint accented his black leather-clad figure as he passed the wild scenery. The picture gave the impression of speed, and power.

A strange mechanical purr, accompanied by tinny music, emanated from a small box at the side of the stall next to Marik. He looked up. A machine just like the one in the magazine, pulling imposingly away as a woman waved goodbye. Captivated, Marik did not hear Ishizu's pleas for his attention.

"You've never seen a TV before, kid?"

At the trader's words, Marik felt himself being pulled away by Ishizu. He longed to watch the TV for longer, to see where the strange vehicle could go. Where Marik could go.

Ishizu walked too fast, but Marik pestered her with questions anyway. A motorbike… Anywhere but here. But however long he lived, he would be beholden to the Tombkeepers' oath, unable to ride in the direction of the setting sun.

Suddenly, Ishizu stopped. "Marik, time's up. We have to go home."

"Already?" Despondency hit Marik in the gut. He'd already seen so much more than he thought possible. He bargained with Ishizu to let him at least keep the picture of the motorbike. He went to hide it under his robe, and that was when he realised.

The Ring was gone.

He must have dropped it at the stall with the TV. He hadn't put it on, not wanting to risk the fiery death that had come to looters before, and now he had lost one of the treasures his clan was supposed to guard.

He had to go back, he had to… But there, blocking their path, was a strange figure. Cold, lifeless eyes, so unlike the twinkling of the spirit of the Ring, and yet here too was undoubtedly a Millennium Item. The Key had been long lost to Marik's clan and now the two youngest stared directly at it.

"The Pharaoh's soul will soon be resurrected." The words were matter-of-fact, but they stung Marik like cobra venom. "Blood will be spilled upon blood, and tragedy will tear your clan apart. This is the will of the Pharaoh."

The Pharaoh's will… Stunned, Marik felt resentment building deep in the darkness of his heart. Ishizu ran after the stranger. Marik followed, looking for the Ring, but there was no sign or sound of it. They returned home downhearted and fearful.

As Ishizu opened the gate, Marik paused. He sat on a patch of broken wall nearby, feeling the sun kiss his skin, the wind sing in his hair, and he closed his eyes and imagined riding free in foreign lands.

He wasn't sure whether he heard the spirit's voice or imagined it as he set his foot on the first step into the darkness. "Thanks to you, I got out. Will you? I gave you the world. It's up to you now."

Marik took another laboured step into the darkness. He looked up at the sky about to close over his head. "The sun," he thought to himself. "I will make it mine."

* * *

For Spiritsncrystals, as part of the Yu-Gi-Oh! Shipfest Discord server's Secret Halloween Event. As this is a giftfic, criticism is not sought at this time.


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